


Constant Temptation

by devilinthedetails



Series: Free Spirit [6]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Forbidden Love, Gen, Passion, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25862077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Lianne and Roald discuss Lianne's impending marriage during a cold snap.
Relationships: Alan of Pirate's Swoop/Lianne II of Conté
Series: Free Spirit [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864777
Kudos: 9





	Constant Temptation

Constant Temptation

It was the last cold snap before winter’s icy, iron grasp yielded to the warmer, gentler embrace of spring. The sudden cold spell had sapped the life from the first bold blossoms that had dared to emerge from the hard soil. Lianne could see that as she strolled along the cobblestone paths of the palace gardens with her oldest brother at her side. The frost cracked beneath their feet, imparting a tension like skating on thin ice to the silence that had built like a wall between them since they began their walk together under a mackerel sky. 

“The last snows will melt from the roads soon.” At last, Roald shattered the silence between them with an observation Lianne thought obvious enough to invite eye rolling. “You’ll be able to ride to Maren to be wed to Prince Rurik when the roads clear.” 

“Yes,” Lianne agreed, thinking that she knew this better than her brother because she had more reason to know. It was her life and her marriage they were discussing, after all. 

The journey to Maren would be a long, muddy slog rendered all the more dreary and interminable by the fact that it had been decreed by Master Oakbridge that a princess of the realm must ride off to her marriage in a carriage with her attendant ladies, not on horseback as if she were charging into battle. 

“Alan will be accompanying you into Maren,” Roald continued, and Lianne had the sense from his growing grimness that this was the matter he wished to discuss with her on this walk through palace gardens. 

“He will.” Lianne nodded. She had asked Alan to come to Maren as her knight-in-shining armor, and he had agreed just as she had know he would because his love for her was so deep, pure, and all-consuming that he never could resist or refuse her anything since childhood. That inability to resist or refuse was what it meant to be in love, Lianne believed, and it was so paralyzing that it could surely happen only once in a lifetime if at all. 

“You should reconsider having him accompany you to Maren.” Roald’s words were quiet but each one reverberated like a shout in Lianne’s eardrums. “I know you love him, and he loves you. It would be an endless temptation for you and for him if he were in Maren.” 

“You know nothing of love,” snapped Lianne, frigid as the frost breaking beneath her boots. Her brother was too cautious, too measured, to understand passion much less be ruled by it, and one who couldn’t understand or be ruled by passion could never love. To love was to indulge in passion and face all consequences with a heedless abandon. She might have forgiven him his lack of passion—lack of love—if he hadn’t demanded the same emotional deadness from her. “You know nothing of passion.” 

“I know enough of love and passion to understand that they can destroy you, Alan, your marriage to Prince Rurik, and even fracture the peace with Maren your marriage is meant to secure if you ever act on your feelings for Alan.” Roald’s gaze was cool as the weather that had killed the first brave buds of spring. “I know you’ll be risking thousands of lives if you indulge your passion for Alan. I know it’ll be selfish of you to bring Alan where you and he will be in constant temptation to do just that.” 

Selfish. The word rang through the air like a bell-call to worship and stung Lianne’s cheek like a slap. The sting was made all the more painful by the vinegar realization that the brother who was condemning her forbidden love for Alan as selfish had never truly sacrificed anything—any desire or passion—for his arranged marriage to the beautiful, graceful Princess Shinkokami. He had gotten his happily ever after and then accused her of selfishness for wanting any sliver of joy and comfort in a strange land. 

“I’m marrying Prince Rurik out of selfish devotion to Tortall.” Lianne’s chin lifted obstinately, her brother’s appeal having the exact opposite effect he must have hoped for and envisioned when he had planned what he would say to her on this stroll along winding garden paths during the last cold snap of winter. “You wrong me if you believe anything otherwise, brother.” 

Roald hesitated before answering stiffly, “Forgive me if I insulted you, sister.” 

“Granted.” Lianne inclined her head, offering him chilled, formal absolution and nothing else for how he had offended her. 

“Take care of yourself in Maren.” It could have been a courteous farewell, but Lianne recognized with shivering certainty that her brother had intended it as a warning, a caution she could never follow because it wasn’t in her nature to be careful as it was in his. The same Conte blood that flowed through their veins had manifested itself so differently it was stunning. Lianne felt as if a leagues-wide gulf separated them as they walked side-by-side in a cold snap.


End file.
